Winter 2015

Clean-up operation at Lake Onondaga

TenCate Geosynthetics Americas supplied TenCate Geotube® units for a large environmental project at Lake Onondaga, north-east of the city of Syracuse in New York State.

As a result of well over a century of industrial activity on the shores of the 12-km2-large lake, the water quality of this lake had deteriorated seriously.

Lake Onondaga

Parsons Engineering used TenCate Geotube® units to dewater the 1.6 million m³ of contaminated sediment and to store it permanently as a solid. This was carried out on a terrain in the vicinity. The filtered water was pumped back into the lake through water treatment plants. This is the largest dredging operation using geotextile containers in North America.

The contaminated sediment was stored in TenCate Geotube® units in the vicinity of the lake (on the right)

Work began on the project in 2012 and was completed earlier than planned. Parsons Engineering praised the system, the experience, technical knowledge and the speed of operation of TenCate Geosynthetics Americas. This major clean-up operation resulted in an improvement to the water quality and the habitat for fish and wildlife, improvement to its recreational potential and resulted in protection of both the environment and human health.